Portal combat

The start of December was supposed to see the realisation of a goal that began to take shape in 2007, but only gained real impetus with the loss of Bear Stearns in March 2008. That was the date set by dealers for the launch of centralised clearing of credit default swaps (CDSs) in the US - an initiative pushed hard by regulators and embraced by the major banks to reduce counterparty risk in the credit derivatives market. Four central counterparty (CCP) platforms are in the works, with three